My sadness and disappointment at this decision can hardly be expressed.

The news that a massive further slaughter of our native badgers is now sanctioned by the Government comes at the moment when we finally have in our hands the definitive proof that bovine TB will only be conquered by action within the herds to cut off the routes of reinfection. History will show that the deaths of tens of thousands of badgers gave farmers

absolutely no help in the fight against disease in cattle. It’s a massive and tragic mistake. We will fight on in every way we know how. But in spite of this horrendous injustice, we at Save Me Trust will continue to fight alongside enlightened farmers rather than against them.

I’m personally 100 per cent convinced the Gatcombe strategy will prove to be the beginning of eradication of TB in farm animals and in wildlife, and that the badger cull will soon be seen for the utterly ineffective witch-hunt that it really is.